


If You Stare Into The Void, It Might Keep You Company

by Lilly_Loon



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Gen, Implied Past Character Death, Zimvoid, introspective, pre zimvoid, sort of a prequel for the Zimvoid arc, zib
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27583706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilly_Loon/pseuds/Lilly_Loon
Summary: It was only as he felt his feet burn that his pace started to slow. That moment of weakness was all it took for his body to give in to exhaustion, and the young boy dropped to his knees on the cold dusty floor.When your reality has crumbled to nothing, all you are left with is time to muse over.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	If You Stare Into The Void, It Might Keep You Company

It was only as he felt his feet burn that his pace started to slow. That moment of weakness was all it took for his body to give in to exhaustion, and the young boy dropped to his knees on the cold dusty floor.

There was no way of knowing how long he’d been walking. It felt like hours. Time seemed to have completely stopped the moment he opened his eyes to the seemingly infinite expanse of a barren wasteland.

Dib still wasn’t able to wrap his head around what had happened. It all felt as though he was dreaming, and for some reason, a part of him didn’t want to wake up. He simply laid on the ground. Sharply nailed hands picked absentmindedly at the coarse dirt under him as he stared blankly at the horizon.

Everything looked the same. Miles of nothing but rusted rubble and dust. Pieces of scrap metal and broken concrete scattered all over the surface, with no end in sight.

It looked to be night time, but Dib knew he’d walked for long enough to have reached day time at some point. Yet the sun never came. There was no moon, clouds or stars either. The sky was nothing but an uncannily empty black void.

It would be impossible not to get lost in a place like this -there wouldn’t even be any light at all-, if it wasn’t for the massive beacon that loomed in the distance, right behind Dib’s crouching form. The last strong source of light left, showering its surroundings in its sickly green glow.

The only other source of light remaining was the faint, almost imperceptible pink that emanated from the back of Dib’s head, where the modified PAK of his old enemy nested.

The boy remained unmoved as he tried to grasp at any coherent thought he could, to make sense of what he was seeing. As he turned his head to the tall green beacon, his mind finally seemed to kick into gear, and memories were pushed into the forefront.

The Zapper. The panicked multitudes of people. The addictive vertigo from looking down on them from atop his creation. The pure ecstasy that invaded his whole body. The echoes of roaring laughter that he used to indulge in, that now felt completely out of place coming out of his own mouth.

His skin turned to ice at the memories of his own machine overloading.

Not a single person remained.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

He shivered involuntarily despite the disturbing lack of wind, short raspy breaths cutting through the complete silence. Nausea hit him like a wave.

This couldn’t be real. He was hallucinating. He was dreaming.

Dib raised a fist and pounded the ground as the frustration grew, inhuman teeth clenched in a zipper-like grimace.

It was an accident! How was he supposed to know that scaling the Zapper up to its current size would overload The Massive’s generators!?

A strained, barely contained growl broke through Dib’s lips, voice still raspy from the shouting he had done in his earlier search for survivors. His hand hurt gravely from the increasing number of punches he landed on the solid floor, but he didn’t stop.

This was all Zim’s fault! Not his! There was a flaw in his schematics! If that stupid alien had bothered to write down the proper scaling ratio for the machine, this wouldn't have happened!

But Zim was dead now. He’d been for a while.

And everyone else was… gone, too.

The boy’s bruised hand stopped its pounding and landed limply on his knee. He lifted his head up to look at the unending black that governed the sky. He felt as though it might swallow him up any second.

Throughout his life, Dib had always been familiar with feelings of solitude. But none of it could have ever compared to the harrowing loneliness he felt at that moment.

The kid gripped tightly at his shoulders to try to stop the shaking. His breath hitched erratically, increasingly puffy eyes vacantly staring into the abyss above him. Mind blank, trying to keep his growing panic in check. There really was nothing left. He was trapped like a rat, with nowhere to go.

His dad and his sister’s faces occupied the forefront of his mind. A slightly burning feeling slid down his left cheek.

He was _so_ _lonely._

This wasn’t Zim’s fault. It was...

_ It was… _

_ A star…? _

Dib’s line of thought was interrupted, as he now strained to see the anomaly that seemed to have appeared on the jet black sky. A tiny, innocuous wisp of lavender was visible far away into the darkness, as if it had always been there.

Now was as good a time to hallucinate as any, thought the kid, as he did nothing but gape at how the strange, almost cloudy-like spark of color grew in size. It was then that Dib saw another splotch of purple-ish colors spawn in the black. And another.

The entirety of the sky was filling up in increasingly growing masses of luminescent purples, blues and greens, which seemed to twist and swirl into massive spirals. A distant humming replaced the silence, occasionally complimented by the sounds of muted thunder.

As the boy stared in marvel at the forming spirals, hope grew in his chest. He’d seen similar shapes before; he recalled a few of Zim’s inventions, portals that connected all kinds of alternate realities with their own. His own dad had worked out a prototype teleporter with a similar function.

The PAK on the back of his head confirmed Dib’s theory right after, as it analyzed and relayed information about the portals directly into his brain.

_ There were so many of them… _

Dib released a breath he didn’t know he had been holding and, as he stared at the almost hypnotic swirls of the portals above him, felt the corners of his mouth turn upward.

A stifled breath escaped his lips, followed by soft, croaky giggles, each increasing in volume.

_ There was still a way out of this. _

The almost awkward beginnings of a laugh grew in intensity. And then, something in Dib finally ticked as he erupted into a full blown cackle.

The dread and desperation he had felt moments prior was almost all too quickly covered up by pure ecstasy. And if his voice cracked as he laughed, he didn’t notice.

Well, of course, there was still a way! So what if things didn't go as planned? So what if there’d been a tiny little accident that derailed things a bit? Big deal! But now, the doors were open to him! Hundreds of Earths in danger! Thousands of evil alien armies. So much to  _ save _ ! _ To destroy _ ! And there had to be at least  _ one _ reality where he’d be truly appreciated!

The euphoria that filled Dib’s body as he convulsed in laughter only grew when he stood up, arms opened wide at his sides, feeling for once truly invincible. His eyes jumped hungrily from portal to portal, as if he was inspecting the meals at an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet.

He would find it! A place where he, the one true saviour of Earth, would be showered with the love and recognition he rightfully deserved!

  
It was the  _ least _ he deserved after everything he had sacrificed, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Uhh hullo, my first attempt at a fic turned out kinda angsty, who knew.  
> Honestly, this thing's been gathering dust for almost a year and had pretty minor revisions since pfft  
> It was originally going to be a full series on how the Zimvoid came to be, but I don't really have the motivation or courage to try something like that.  
> But yah, hope yall enjoyed my messy overworded lil trash fire


End file.
